Sint Maarten Archives

St. Martin or Sint. Maarten is the smallest island in the world to have two different countries each governing one half. The north side of the island is French, while the south side is Dutch. Our villa, Villa Arches, is on the Dutch side, just south of the French border in Dawn Beach.

The villa is perched on the east side of a mountain and has a wonderful view of dawn beach and the morning sunrise. With warm red italian tiles and wide doors open to let in the cool breezes from the ocean, it is a terrific spot to watch the large boats come in to anchor in the protected cove far below, and also take in some sun and a swim in a good-sized pool.

The villa is well stocked with pots and pans, a coffee maker, and utensils and, unlike a lot of islands, the wifi and electricity was reliable and never went out during our stay.

We had dinner at “Big Fish” a fantastic seafood restaurant in Oyster Pond right beside Dawn Beach. The restaurant is owned by Teresa and Mike Wilson, a terrific couple from Toronto – who started the Fox and Fiddle chain of restaurants. Their sushi chef was terrific, but so too was the snapper, shrimp dinner and passionfruit sorbet. It’s a must visit when in St. Martin.

We drove around the island and stopped at a couple of beaches – Friars Bay, Le Gallion – which were too crowded for our liking. We read about Happy Bay beach, which is a short hike north of Friars bay, and were delighted to find it after a wonderful walk along the coast.

We had lunch in Grand Case and ate at a beach bar with an amazing chef. The beach is narrow with restaurants built right up against it. The only drawback was that it lacked beach chairs, so it is not a great place to take elderly visitors – although the kids enjoyed it.

The butterfly farm is a great place to visit on a sunny day and the market in Marigot (French side) and Phillipsburg (Dutch)- filled with colourful wraps, bags and jewelry were filled with activity.

Villa Arches is conveniently located so that excursions around the island didn’t take more than 30 minutes and it was nice leave the bustle of Marigot and come home to a quiet villa with the sound of waves breaking on the shore far below.

The only negative draw back is for those who must get sun – the villa is tucked onto the east side of the mountain so by 4 p.m. the sun is blocked by the mountain, making late afternoon sun tanning impossible. But, we found that by that time in the day we’d had enough sun that it was rarely missed and the warm breezes with a cocktail sitting out on the deck more than made up for the lack of sun.

Wherever we go, I find it is the people who make or break a vacation. We rented a car from Dollar-Thrifty SXM and unfortunately had a tire blow out on the road. They were terrific people and delivered a new car to our villa. While we waited on the side of the road for our taxi to arrive – numerous locals stopped to make sure we were okay and offer help. The locals are terrific.

The only negative attitudes we experienced during our trip came from the people representing the Westin Resort at Dawn Beach. We were flagged down by two of their sales people – they were friendly but wanted us to scratch some tickets to win a prize once we had taken a 90 minute tour of the Westin Dawn Beach and learned about their fractional ownership units. The sales people warned us that other staff might try to take their commission so we should hold on to our scratch tickets and we could win a stay at the resort, an Ipad, or a$1000. We received two sets of cards – two weren’t winners and two were. But the prize was a stay for four at the Westin Dawn beach that could not be used in the week that they are issued. They were also non-transferrable.

The Westin Resort at Dawn Beach is just down the hill from Villa Arches and I wanted to check out their beach to see if my mother could swim there. I also wanted to check out their service, thinking that if they had to sell fractional ownership it might be abysmal. Customer service is so easy, but can be completely messed up if the staff don’t feel encouraged or supported. We poked around and found the restaurant and beach practically empty. I decided to talk to a supervisor about getting a day pass to review the resort. When I spoke to him to see if we might purchase a day pass in order to review the resort, he claimed they were completely sold out. I told him the place was practically empty, but all he did was shrug. So we decided to ignore him and use the beach facilities anyway.

The beach chairs were mostly empty and the waves were pretty rough, but we had a nice swim and left without anyone the wiser. What irked me most was that the supervisor refused us access to review the resort while, at the same time, they are paying people to go out and lure possible customers into the resort. Terrible management and customer service. If a resort like the Westin at Dawn Beach has to sell fractional ownership then they obviously aren’t providing the highest possible service at the best possible price.

Instead of luring people to the resort with “scratch tickets,” simply try welcoming everyone who walks through the door, offering them a free drink at the beach bar, and enticing them to come back everyday and spend money at the restaurants, on beach chairs, and towels — giving them great service the entire time. It’s much more likely their next stay will be with you. Instead the Westin Dawn Beach gave the impression they were trying to be an “elite” club while behind the doors the room was empty.

I highly recommend spending $3500 and renting Villa Arches for a week – where the customer service from the owner far exceeded anything the Westin Dawn Beach can offer!

By Kate Zankowicz

Locusts are swarming the beaches of the Canary Islands and sea turtles are washing up on the shores of Mexico. With such startling ecological costs, how can one manage to frolic in the sand without a burdened conscience this winter? Although I was initially skeptical about ecotourism, I have suffered from the shock of accidentally discovering that raw sewage pipe while innocently combing the beach for cowry shells in the past. I decided that my trip to Saint Martin/Sint Maarten had to be more environmentally kosher.

For those readers who are envisioning being tangled up in mangrove roots while tracking the elusive Sacred Ibis bird, or being forced to tag and label heaps of turtle eggs, think again. You don’t have to be a freakishly avid bird-watcher or relish portage through the jungle to be an eco-tourist. Although Costa Rica may seem to be the most obvious eco-tourist destination, there are many Caribbean islands that are making a commitment to ecologically smart tourism practices, led by CAST (the Caribbean Alliance for Sustainable Tourism) and various nature foundations and ocean reserves.

The small Dutch and French island of Saint Martin/Sint Maarten, for instance, boasts a Marine park and a bird sanctuary. This has been in response to the overwhelming number of tourists (1.2 million a year) who come to cavort on 92 km of pristine white sand beaches and turquoise blue surf. Paradoxically enough, the very things that attract tourists to the island are endangered by their presence there. The main town on the Dutch side, Phillipsburg, is replete with all the trappings of any North American shopping mall. There is a Tommy Hilfiger and Gap for the 20,000 tourists who come off the cruise ship each day to do some shopping they could very well have done at home.

It’s a quaint colonial town, but one that remains surprisingly silent about its colonial past: supposedly discovered by Columbus, invaded by the Spanish, the French, the Dutch, the English, and even the Americans (Juliana Airport is the old U.S. military base). The island was a sugar plantation economy until the tourists started coming, and was a key producer of salt for Dutch herring until the resorts started being built. The border between the French and Dutch sides is marked by a solitary monument. The main difference is that there are sexier guavaberry cocktails and more nude beaches on the French side. Both sides are on the Euro currency, and accept every credit card imaginable.

In the face of a population that seems to double every few years, the marine parks and wildlife preserves are important steps in safeguarding the island from environmental degradation. The Sint Maarten Nature Foundation on the Dutch side has been instrumental in reducing the anchoring damage by establishing boat-free zones in the marine park, and also reducing the coral reef damage caused by cavorting divers. This last is done by building “reef balls,” artificial reef environments that are made from fibre-glass but simulate the real thing. These pockets of enclosed reef teem with stoplight parrot fish, cushion sea stars, queen angelfish, fire worms and conchs without endangering ecologically sensitive reef areas, and are still a diver’s delight.

The foundation also plants palm and mangrove to counter beach erosion, and has established a Turtle Watch to keep tabs on the three species that lay their eggs on the island: the green turtle, the hawksbill and the leatherback.

Although ecotourism sometimes seems like a shameless marketing tool, promising adventure in the rain forest, life-changing ancient cave exploration, or botanically enlightened hikes with native guides, Sint Maarten’s ecotourism is of a quieter variety. There are many hotels that profess to be “ecolodges” simply because they offer bird watching tours, and one should, of course, be aware that “eco” can be misleading.

But as I lolled about the beach, or sat beneath the tamarind trees, a hibiscus bloom behind my ear, I felt considerably more at ease knowing that just beyond the sand was a pelican reserve, and that my brief stint with scuba diving didn’t damage a single coral polyp. The fact that no one asked me to label a sea turtle egg made it even sweeter. And thankfully, there was not a single biblical swarm of locusts to be found.

Sint Maarten

Villa Arches in Sint. Maarten

In pursuit of the guilt-free tan